Edinburgh festivals and Portrait photography

It's marvellous that the Edinburgh festivals are returning for 2021, with 3 main pavilions. Tickets - https://www.eif.co.uk

Each August Edina’s ancient, cobbled streets down from the castle and into the more formal Georgian new town become vibrantly alive with international visitors. Festivals offer a special and unique bringing together of diverse creatives – to collaborate and inspire each other.  

 

I travelled through Princes street Edinburgh to my secondary school at Granton beside the Firth of Forth, once a great port and centre of fishing. I remember the city’s excitement, fun and energy at the theatre, concert, comedy (with the footlights reviews) and art each August for the festivals. Growing up though I never realised the scale or world class significance of the festival to celebrate Europe and its international breath of cultural  impacts – from mime to ballet; folk to opera; poetry to pop; drums to pipes; harmony singing to orchestral depth; Hamlet or absurd comedies and hysterical satire!

 

The Edinburgh festivals and its large Fringe offers so much. The Mound art galleries of the old masters, the history of Enlightenment innovators to modern challengers. 

 

Scottish Festivals ... Seek to engage, challenge, entertain and to ensure quality of standard, musicianship, writing, diversity, colour and more.

 

**In 2008, I began seriously pursuing photography and started shooting at the Edinburgh festival. The high street was always a high point to take photos, while also very challenging with all its many distractions. I love its energy. I studied art at school, play piano and have a long standing interest in music, poetry, drama and art. 

 

After the throbbing high street, I always enjoy the walk down the mound and along George street to the calmer reflections of the Edinburgh International Book festival. I began taking photos here too, in the perfect, shaded environs of the posh Charlotte square. This was always a challenging and inspiring experience. Edinburgh has ever changing light, in August with all the seasons often in one day!

MY Photography website - https://pkimage.co.uk

 

The EIBF is the world’s premier book festival begun in 1982. TICKETS - https://www.edbookfest.co.uk

Edinburgh in a Unesco city of literature and each August EIBF welcomes a wide variety of authors  from Scotland and internationally. I’ve met many famous faces here, which at first is a strange experience.  

 

I’d like to thank all those who’ve encouraged and inspired my work. 

 

Edinburgh Tattoo

street performer

The role of art is to challenge and provoke, to resist stagnation and to question complacency. All art , poetry, prose or painting, represents and interprets the world. Its purpose is to bring new perspectives. 

Edinburgh 2020, MY LIGHT SHINES ON!

August means Edinburgh festivals and in particular its international book festival. I grew up in this northern capital, dominated by its castle, Arthur seat and historic Royal mile. The Edinburgh festival has been taking place each August since 1947. After the devastation of war Austrian Rudolf Bing, decided Europe could be brought together to heal by a large scale cultural festival. He decided on Edina, as it reminded him of Salzburg, and it became the worlds biggest cultural arts event. This is the first year for 72 years since 1947 the Edinburgh festival has not been held.

There is the main international festival, the fringe, the comedy, dance, opera, musicals, drama, concerts, mime, art, debates and of course the performers in the high street..

Edinburgh is a great cultural city, with a rich past and present, and hosts the world’s biggest multi national major festival, that celebrates not only comedy, theatre, music, dance and the arts – but the intersections and connections between and the significance of the arts for all of us. Glasgow has a wealth of iconic music venues – King Tuts, Barrowlands, Oran Mor and celebrates all the genres as well as its links via shipping to America and beyond. It was the once world’s shipbuilder.

The Edinburgh International book festival EIBF, the first of its kind is where Charlotte square Edinburgh comes alive with the written and spoken word.

welcomes many well kent faces – celebrities, scientists, academics, historians, illustrators, children’s authors, politicians, economists and more. Its such an adrenalin buzz of coming together, informed debates and renewal, a chance to recharge and be inspired by other creatives..

Instead this year the EIBF will host 140 events online program  - https://www.facebook.com/edbookfest/

 

Charlotte Square gardens

Of course many Edina locals have been finding the surge of crowds overwhelming the city as the festival got bigger and bigger every year. While many others enjoy and attend events. Another issue has been that the global companies involved which has meant money going off to London and elsewhere. More money needs to be kept back to be spent on Edinburgh infrastructure and roads. 

 MY LIGHT SHINES ON .....

I took a trip over the Edinburgh - it was strange to see the quiet streets and I hope these times of reflection will bring us all deeper appreciation of what the ARTS mean for our lives. 

 **Strange and Challenged Times

Art is crucial

Art is how we move forward, broaden horizons, question and exchange ideas, culture and heritage ultimately matters more – more than any political rhetoric. 

We had lockdown from March for three long months until easing began. Its been a worrying, disconcerting experience. There have been plus sides too - less pollution noise, clear air, no crime!

Prices will be low this year, perhaps I might go over and just walk about – down the Dean village, the water of Leith, the forth estuary harbour front of Newhaven (where I went to secondary school) or Cramond walks or the famous Royal mile. Will anything be open though? 

“Creative families want to be back together felt quite emotional – its a vocation, we love it – to feel it coming back.  So much talent in Scotland. “

I have been taking photos at the Edinburgh Festival since 2007. Perhaps this is a year to step back, and renew our attitudes and ideas or make a change of direction. Perhaps this is much needed reflections and contemplations.

So this year is very strange for me, August is Edinburgh! EIF is a great melting pot. 

There will be online performances from the SCO, RSNO

Aiden O’Rourke, Rachel Sermanni, Allan Cumming, and many more.

For details BBC Scotland

Festival facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/edfringe/

WHY EDINBURGH?  “Certain preconditions were obviously required of such a centre. It should be a town of reasonable size, capable of absorbing and entertaining anything between 50,000 and 150,000 visitors over a period of three weeks to a month. It should, like Salzburg, have considerable scenic and picturesque appeal and it should be set in a country likely to be attractive to tourists and foreign visitors. It should have sufficient number of theatres, concert halls and open spaces for the adequate staging of a programme of an ambitious and varied character. Above all it should be a city likely to embrace the opportunity and willing to make the festival a major preoccupation not only in the City Chambers but in the heart and home of every citizen, however modest. Greatly daring but not without confidence I recommended Edinburgh as the centre and promised to make preliminary investigations.^”

Art is how I imagine and visualise my references.

Music is my main point of wonder, escape and emotional release. 

Poetry is how I make sense of the turmoil, confusion and troubles. 

And the stories we tell ourselves. 

All Edinburgh Festivals 2020 Cancelled due to virus

All of Edinburgh Festivals 2020 are cancelled: and will not take place for the first time in 70 years. 

The Edinburgh FRINGE, ARTS, INTERNATIONAL, BOOK & FILM (plus the Tattoo) festivals are cancelled due to the coronavirus. Devastating if not unexpected news. I attend every year, what will I do August?
Edinburgh’s five August festivals, welcome audiences of more than 4.4 million people and 25,000 artists.

Shona McCarthy, the chief executive of the Fringe Society, said the decision had not been taken lightly. She also held out hope that they would find ways of “uniting people” under a fringe umbrella .What will happen to funding, performers, shows and tickets? Lets hope the festivals of 2021 will come back even more renewed.

Edinburgh festival 2019

2019 was the festivals 72nd year 

For the month of August Edinburgh’s population doubles in size, and every possible room and hall becomes a venue. Edinburgh’s Royal Mile is the perfect historic backdrop for the players to exhibit their talents. The weather in August may be changeable, but it is also just right. 

The main event is the comedy: and the international main festival, theatre plays, music concerts, dance, cabaret – from world class, to school and university amateurs. It offers an expanding platform for new talent. There is something here for everyone. Edinburgh is also just the right size to walk around the dramatic castle, old town and new town. Its worth taking time to explore Scottish history off the main tourist paths and down the Canongate. 

Many great writers have lived here - Alan Ramsay, Adam Smith, David Hume, Dugald Stewart, Adam Ferguson, James Hutton, Henry MacKenzie, Robert Burns, Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson, Arthur Conan Doyle, Alexander Macall Smith, Ian Rankin.

Edinburgh Festivals 2018!

The fields are golden, the sun getting lower and a chill begins in the evening air as the first leaves are starting to fall. 

 Its dark now late Sunday and the men are busy packing up the large tents on George street. We know the festival must end, and a normal and quieter Edinburgh return – but also the festival lifts us all higher for a short while, and makes the impossible possible, offers new horizons. 

EIF provides a glorious and golden end of summer bash each year celebrating the best of theatre, comedy, music, dance, art and much much more...Edinburgh offers a festival for all tastes – from the intellectual rigour of the book festival, its significant comedy festival, and extensive theatre.  

Under luminous skies, I entered with the book festival with a heady mix of anticipation, bolstered by the beaming exuberance , shared laughter and well rehearsed singers of the high street.  

The sometimes new and tacky mixes with the unique individual histories. Perhaps I might hope for more of the latter. Some worry Edina is turning into a Theme park and moving downmarket – do we want a Butlin’s image or to attract the more sophisticated traveller? 

Edina has a rich seam of authentic heritage - not only the deep stories of the dark rugged castle rock, but the majestic Georgian new town and the hidden alleyways below and beyond its Royal Mile. 

 There were 4.5 million ticket sales, second only to the Olympics – and this festival takes place every year; but the diversity means there is little TV coverage. From the grand Tattoo show on the castle esplanade,  the main international festival and the youthful Fringe shows and offers a platform for new theatre, 

**TALKS EIBF

Paris Riots 68, with Nael Ascherson

Yanis Varoufakis

Karl Ove Knaasgard

Michael Marra: Arrest This Moment

Gina Miller

**SHOWS that caught my attention

The Beggars Opera - The Kings

Mhairi Campbell, Auld Lang Syne, Storytelling centre

The Red Guitar - 

Midsummer - The Hub

Caledonian Soul - Queens hall
Ulster American - Traverse theatre

I managed a few shows, sadly not time for all.